Columnists - Yorkshire Post

Ted Bromund: Obama retreats from old military alliances

TWO years ago, Barack Obama administration completed a comprehensive review of US defence strategies and priorities. Known as the Quadrennial Defence Review, it’s the equivalent of Britain’s defence reviews. As its name suggests, it’s supposed to provide the basis for US planning for the next four years.

Rachel Reeves: Forget the rhetoric about the Big Society and help charities give real help to real people

BEFORE being elected as an MP, I spent some time volunteering with a local charity, Barca Leeds, based in Bramley. Barca do outstanding work in west Leeds, helping families and individuals who need support through providing youth services, counselling, addiction rehabilitation and economic regeneration. I saw first-hand the difference local charities made to my constituents.

Bill Carmichael: Give aid where they need it

WHEN the coalition came to power in 2010, it decided that because of the dismal state of government finances there would need to be substantial cuts in every area of public spending – except one.

Kevin Austerberry: Nurses will fight on to halt the turmoil of NHS reforms

CALLING a halt to the Health and Social Care Bill is now the only way we can protect patient care and nursing standards in the NHS. The Royal College of Nursing did not take the decision to oppose this bill lightly.

David Blunkett: The human rights of this terrorist must not prevent the protection of our people

BRITAIN reflected in the 1990s, as it did 100 years earlier, a view that those who didn’t immediately threaten the life and well-being of this country should receive refuge and with it the freedom to speak, write and yes, plot what they liked.

Jayne Dowle: I want head teachers who are firm and fair

WHAT should we expect from a head teacher? It’s a question we parents need to ask. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools, warns that poor leadership is blighting up to a quarter of England’s primary and secondary schools. This means that up to 5,000 leaders are not getting to grips with sub-standard teaching and continue to “trot out excuses” such as poverty and deprivation for low exam grades.

Bernard Ingham: Mutiny of the mandarins and the plight of a Premier

OUR mandarins are getting restive. It seems they are quitting in droves, even though their bonuses perversely rise while those of some bankers fall.

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Sarah Wellard: Key role of grandparents holding families together

ARE you a grandparent with grandchildren under 16? If so, then the chances are you are supporting your grandchildren and your adult children by helping out with childcare.

Lembit Opik: As Clegg sees off his deadliest rival, can Huhne come back to have the last laugh?

WITH all the attention on beleaguered Liberal Democrat MP Chris Huhne and his pending court case, the spotlight has shifted away from Lib Dem party leader, Nick Clegg: Huhne’s travails have occupied just about all of the space reserved for Lib Dems in the nation’s media.

Howard Johns: Solar energy is starting to win our struggle for power

WHEN you start talking about solar energy in the UK you often get a rather predictable response: “Does it really work in the UK? We don’t have enough sun do we?”

Ian McMillan: Rooney’s a football, but I’m more of a typewriter

THE lady in the thickly-rimmed glasses was breathlessly explaining all the delights they’d got coming up in their festival. “And then we’ve got a chef doing a cookery demonstration and he’s called…”

Conservative Party Chairman Eric Pickles.

Tom Richmond: A local difficulty as political window dressing tries to mask scale of cuts

IT’S not just the rich – and the Government’s perpetual inability to decide whether it is on the side of the well-off or not.

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Jayne Dowle: How television has become an empty vessel

THE actress Keira Knightley and I have not got much in common. Except brown eyes and a bit of a fondness for Johnny Depp, with whom she has shared one or two pirate adventures.

Grim shadow of rising unemployment hangs over the hopes of my home town

As Britain teeters on the brink on a double dip recession, and the Government clamps down on welfare payments, a Parliamentary debate considered the ramifications for a Yorkshire town on the economic front line. Here a Labour MP and a Liberal Democrat Minister reflect on the state of Halifax.

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Ian McMillan: I dreamed a dream – of misery

I wake up from The Dream and I’m sweating and thrashing and disorientated. I’m mumbling: “Take the big wings away! I don’t want to see those giant spots any more! I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!” I drag myself out of bed and go downstairs and drink lots of water, lots of lovely water with no wings or spots. I calm down a tad. But I can’t go back to bed because, like somebody from a cheap horror film, I might fall asleep and then... I might dream! I might dream The Dream again! (At this point you should hear crashing doomy chords in a minor key and a terrifying scream but as this is a newspaper not a film perhaps you could just hum some crashing doomy chords in a minor key and give us a bit of a scream. Ta.)

Bill Carmichael: Knight out for the lynch mob

BREAK out the pitchforks! Fire up the blazing torches! The lynch mob is on the march in a frenzy of anti-banker hysteria – and utterly shameless politicians, who counted those same bankers as bosom chums just a few months ago, are happy to march at its head all for the sake of a few votes.

Jonathan Reed: Rivals who should have banked on co-operation

THERE are few things the Government seems to like more than a competition.

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David Blunkett: Forget the rhetoric and snobbery, we need an education system to bring out the best in our children

IN responding to the Education Secretary’s cull of vocational qualifications recognised for attainment purposes in English schools, Dr Mike Short, president of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), said the Government would “fail many of our young people if it does not provide a high-quality alternative to traditional academic routes”.

Timothy Kirkhope: Regions must control Euro cash to drive the recovery

MUCH has been made of the recent Open Europe opinion paper on regional funding and, in particular, its conclusion that we, in Yorkshire and the Humber, would be better-off without a European funding mechanism at all.

Richard Heller: It’s a dishonourable system that gave Fred his knighthood in the first place

IT is hard to feel sorry for ex-Sir Fred Goodwin but no one should be penalised for being unpopular.

Jayne Dowle: Sarkozy’s jibe hits home over training for jobs

SO it takes a Frenchman to point out the obvious. “The UK has no industry any more,” says President Sarkozy.

Peter Watson: Shame of insurers who ignore victims’ rights

YOU may have heard marketing spiel from insurers pointing out that when an uninsured driver hits your car: “Don’t worry; you’ll be fully covered with us.”

Greg Mulholland: Why Britain can bank on this region to lead the way into a green economy

THE Green Investment Bank is one of the most exciting policy ideas put forward by the coalition.

Tom Richmond: Yes, the bankers deserve a bashing, but what about posturing politicians?

IF a vote was held today to determine Britain’s most unpopular person, it would be comfortably won by a Yorkshireman – Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester.

Ian McMillan: Our own independence day will come at last

I WAS down in Cornwall the other day and I was impressed by the number of black and white Cornish flags hanging defiantly in gardens and from the sides of cottages; they flapped madly in the harsh South West weather, and because of their colour, they looked a bit like those old-style flick-books or the start of a black and white newsreel film.

Mark O’Brien: Free and easy employers widen the great jobs divide

WHEN you sit down for your cup of coffee this morning, switch on the breakfast shows on the television. Spot the crew feverishly working behind the scenes around the stylishly-dressed, handsomely-paid presenters on Sky News or Breakfast on the BBC. Somewhere among them, an unpaid worker will be on the phones arranging interviews and researching discussions throughout the show.

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Nick Silver: Forget the dogma, there is a way out of this financial mess

The latest twist in that financial soap opera, the euro debt crisis, is the downgrading by Standard & Poors of the credit rating of some countries, along with that of the EU’s bail-out fund.

Jayne Dowle: There’s still something sick at heart of the NHS

I DON’T agree with pointless targets. But one target I did agree with was Labour’s “four hour limit” for waiting times in A&E. As someone who has spent plenty of time there, especially with sobbing children, I welcome anything that provides a degree of certainty.

Better shopping facilities in the centre of Halifax and a new state-of-the-art library and archive for the town are at the heart of proposals approved by Calderdale Councils Cabinet.
Members last night agreed plans which would see:

� A new central library and archive next to the Square Spire and linking into the historic Piece Hall.

� Disposal of Northgate House and central library premises, creating an attractive redevelopment site, which will be targeted at non-food retail business.

� Sale of the Councils Heath site in order to locate Council services together in the town centre

Linda Riordan: The tale of the library, the bulldozers and a sorry failure of local domocracy

IT is easy to knock councils, especially in these dark days of austerity, cuts and job losses. They are faced with a thankless task, put in an impossible position by Eric Pickles who has squeezed every last penny out of them in 18 miserable months of Tory/Lib Dem Government.

Ian McMillan: Cinematic memories of an evening of laughter

My dad used to tell me that his dad, George McMillan of Carnwath in Lanarkshire, converted all the cinemas in his part of the county to sound in the late 1920s, and when people first heard the talkies they ran from the cinema in fear into the frosty Scottish night, trying to cover their ears with deep-fried haggis and black bun.

Bill Carmichael: Practise what you preach

IN the House of Lords this week, the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, John Packer, led a revolt by senior clergy against the Government’s welfare reforms, arguing that an annual cap on benefits of £26,000 is unfair and un-Christian.

Meg Munn: Why tennis should go back to grass-roots

TENNIS is a sport open to all. It is played by children, as soon as they can hold the racket, through to the older generation to maintain agility, balance, flexibility and strength.

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Jonathan Reed: Trouble in the air for Cameron as angry Tory MPs aim to blow his wind farm vision off course

WHEN David Cameron sought to overhaul the image of the Conservative Party, he urged people to “vote blue, go green”.

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Simon Reevell: A fairer Union with Scotland would be worth fighting for

THE reason that a majority of the English appear to support Scottish independence is because of the obvious unfairness of the current arrangements.

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Newt Gingrich, accompanied by his wife Callista. AP

Jayne Dowle: Question of trust over Gingrich’s serial adultery

SAY what you like about the American elections, but they certainly make us think about what makes a person “fit to govern”. Even if you find the endless speechifying and complicated system of primaries tedious beyond belief, the campaigning brings into sharp focus a matter which should be interesting to us all; at what point should personal life and marital behaviour impact upon a person’s ability to do their job? Especially when that job comes with as much prestige and responsibility as that of Leader of the Free World.

Tom Richmond: Resort where time stands still... and so does the traffic stuck on the A64

IT was one of those priceless moments, so few and far between, where one just wishes for time to stand still.

Bernard Ingham: Thank goodness for capitalism: it may be a flawed system, but it’s the one that works

SOMETHING sensational has happened in British politics. The only game in town is capitalism. Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats are now all singing from the same hymn sheet. They seek the Holy Grail of “responsible”, “ethical”, “moral” or even “John Lewis” capitalism.

Phil Orford: A stamp of disapproval for mail price increase

MASSIVE increases to the price of posting mail in the UK will harm small business and hasten the demise of the Royal Mail.

Norman Fowler: We must put a cap on welfare, but help with hardship

IT is not my habit to trample on the territory of my Conservative social security successors.

Andrew Jones: Trusting professionals is the key to schools revolution

EDUCATION hardly made the headlines during the 2010 election. The campaigns generated the usual heat, but the talk was of the TV debates and above all the economy.

Ian McMillan: What the economy needs is sweeping change

I WAS thinking about brushes the other day. Specifically, I was thinking about that old idea that if you get a new brush head for your brush and then a new stick for your brush then you’ve got a completely new brush.

GP Taylor: The Bravehearts can go it alone... and start paying their own bills

MY favourite film of all time has to be Braveheart. There was something spectacularly funny about Mel Gibson trying to speak in a Scottish accent. Then there was also his hair, not the kind of style you would see in the fashionable hotspots of Edinburgh.

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Angela Smith: We need fairness over our crucial railway connections

FOR this region, the Northern Hub project is as important as the Crossrail project is to London.

Jayne Dowle: Novel burst of enthusiasm as Dickens flies high

HE’S not a big fan of books and literature, my son. And the idea of sitting down in a confined space for any longer than the time it takes him to eat his tea usually fills him with horror.

Olympic Stadium in Stratford, London. PA

Ed Cox: If the UK economy is to flourish again, the North’s potential must be released

THE latest unemployment figures make for grim reading. Nationally, unemployment reached a 17-year high after an 118,000 increase in the jobless total. Yorkshire and Humber’s out-of-work tally is now above 10 per cent and the claimant count is higher than at the recession peak. This region also saw a 0.6 per cent decrease in the employment rate, the second largest decrease in the country.

Ian McMillan: The life and times of an NME showbiz journalist

When I was a teenager with long hair, a noisy LP collection and an ex-Army greatcoat that was badly in need of a good scrub, I couldn’t wait for Thursday to come because that was NME day. To the uninitiated or the deeply ungroovy, that’s the New Musical Express, the weekly music paper that’s celebrating its 60th birthday this year. I’d grab it from the shelves and devour it from front to back, back to front and then middle outwards, both ways, and because the ink came off on your fingers, by Thursday night I looked like I’d done a double shift down Darfield Main coal mine.